F1 2018 (PC) review

On August 17, 2018 by Aaron Meehan

As someone who enjoyed F1 2017 I thought it would be rather difficult for Codemasters to improve with their next official Formula One game, but they proved me wrong as F1 2018 improves and expands upon the features found in F1 2017, and perfectly implements some of the new real world Formula One technical changes such as the HALO system, which protects the driver’s head from debris and accidents.

The most striking improvement to F1 2018 is the career mode as you now have to deal with the media asking you time-sensitive questions, and while you might feel your answers to their questions mean nothing they have consequences as your answers can affect your reputation with your team and the morale of your research and development department. Alongside your reputation you have your character style, this new feature is a bar that can swing between sportsmanship and showmanship depending on your on track actions and the previously mentioned interviews, for example choosing to thank your team for the win instead of saying it was all down to you sees the character style lean towards sportsmanship. While this off-track action isn’t as exciting as racing, it does a brilliant job of immersing you into the world of F1.

The ever so fun R&D aspect of career mode also gets an upgrade as regulation changes can affect what improvements you can make to your car, and team-specific tech trees means that not every team will have the same upgrade path. Just like with the additional off-track content the R&D changes make the career mode a more personal experience.

For those who haven’t played F1 2017 and are wondering what is R&D and how does it work, well during career mode you can upgrade four parts of your car: powertrain, chassis, aerodynamics and durability with resource points. To gain resource points you need to meet or surpass your team’s expectations and complete multiple practice programmes.

Practice programs are similar to F1 2017s where during the practice sessions you much complete several tests, these are: Track acclimatisation (learning about the track by going to through gates), tyre management (managing tyre wear), fuel management (managing fuel usage per lap), ERS management (learn to effectively harvest ERS), qualifying pace (how fast can you go), race strategy (combine all programmes so that your team can create the best race strategy) and team strategy (these are objectives your team want i.e. low fuel run, fast in X sector and chain corners). Practice programmes aren’t just important because they gain you resource points, but because they also help you get used to the tracks.

Speaking of tracks let’s talk about the racing, F1 2018 adds new suspension and chassis physics alongside real F1 physics data, and these improvements are in full effect as simple mistakes such as driving offline, going over curbs or hitting the accelerator to quickly can have unforeseen consequences. In terms of the driver AI, they are still unfortunately annoying, I’ve had cars drive into me and retiring cars block me along with other AI drivers, but while I am being critical of the AI it isn’t terrible, especially on the higher difficulty setting where they offer an actual challenge.

For those who are new to the franchise and are wondering about the learning curve, well you will be happy to know that the game is very accommodating to new players with a number of assists that include: braking assistance, traction control and on-screen indicators that tells you when you should break or accelerate.

What else is there to say about F1 2018? Well, it has all the officially licensed tracks, including Circuit Paul Ricard and Hockenheimring, all the official drivers and teams, and the continued support for classic cars with F1 2018 adding eight new classic cars for you to enjoy in multiplayer, time trial and during special career mode events.

Earlier in this review, I mentioned the HALO device, and I think it is important to bring it up again as it drastically alters the cockpit view. At first, the HALO device can be a nuisance as its centre column does make it difficult to see some parts of the track or see objects such as the gates you need to drive through in the track acclimatisation practice programme. However, over time I got used to the HALO device, but if like me you enjoy using the cockpit view for racing and can’t stand the thought of the HALO restricting your view of the track than you will be happy to know that the game allows you to hide the centre column of the HALO device.

For those who like graphics, Codemasters’ has made some amazing visual upgrades with the cars and tracks having some amazing details from detailed tyre degradation to scratch marks caused by a run in with a barrier. Playing the PC version of F1 2018 on the ultra high settings is a visual treat and if you have a PC powerful enough to run the game at its highest settings I strongly recommend you do.

Conclusion

F1 2018 offers an enjoyable racing experience alongside an in-depth career mode. If you are a fan of Formula One I highly recommend playing F1 2018.